This plan from October 1857 shows a mass of rock blocking the middle of 71st Street between Avenues A and B (now York Avenue and FDR Drive). The diagram at the center... Read More
Issachar Cozzens, in his Geological History of Manhattan or New York Island of 1843, described the challenges the graders faced in opening the streets: “the Diluvium is... Read More
Issachar Cozzens, in his Geological History of Manhattan or New York Island of 1843, described the challenges the graders faced in opening the streets: “The Diluvium is... Read More
The topographical changes that resulted from the Commissioners’ Plan were nowhere more evident than in the view shown here of the northward path of Second Avenue on... Read More
This image documents the intersection of West 84th Street and Broadway as it appeared in 1879. In the 1840s, the writer Edgar Allan Poe and his family rented a room at... Read More
The high bluffs of the northwestern end of Manhattan played a crucial role in the defense of New York. In this photograph from 1878, one can see the remains of a... Read More
The outcroppings and rusticity of the area around the Commissioners’s Harlem Square and of Mount Morris Parks is evident in this photograph of 1894 of a lot bounded by... Read More
This view of the intersection of Amsterdam Avenue and 124th Street shows the convergence of new and old, the Acropolis apartment building on the left towering over the... Read More
Street grading often required so much excavation that it lowered the level of the street to well below the level of the adjacent blocks. Owners of the individual lots on... Read More
This rock spur spanned the block between 93rd and 94th Streets on Riverside Drive, and the difficulties of its removal were such that it remained in the lot into the... Read More
Certain blocks of the 1811 grid retain their rock outcroppings despite having been developed. Built over a schist formation, P.S. 36 stands atop the rock on concrete... Read More
On the west side of northern Manhattan, topography takes over from the street grid. A long ridge of rocky hills lies parallel to the river, crossed by few east-west... Read More